[Image Description]: A meme in the style of anti-piracy ads stating the following:
You wouldn't pirate a game you already paid for to be able to play it again since the company stopped supporting it and no longer sells it
this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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And companies fail to acknowledge that not every download is a lost sale. The people who have downloaded thousands of games for their emulators would not have purchased those thousands of games if emulation wasn't available.
Case in point. Just because they're downloading it "because it's free" doesn't mean they were going to purchase "everything available" but find it all for free instead. They are likely not even consuming most of it anyway, and just collecting.
It is absurd that Nintendo will spend money to shut down a webpage hosting "Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link" when that's not something they will ever sell again. Someone pirating Baldur's Gate 3 because they don't want to pay for it doesn't change the absurdity of keeping a stranglehold on a 37 year old game.
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I do not disagree that there are people who download things for free because they don't want to pay for it. However that doesn't mean every download represents a lost sale. I would argue the majority of downloads never would have been sales in the first place.
Personally I frequently pirate things to try them. If I bounce off of it then I'm glad I didn't pay for it, if I like it I buy it. I have many games on Steam with under an hour of playtime and most achievements unlocked because I finished the game on a pirated copy, then purchased it and loaded my save.
All that said my main point is that all of this is irrelevant to the actual topic at hand: if I have purchased a game legally and it is no longer being supported there should be no issue with me acquiring the files through another method in order to play it.
Saying "well some people use piracy to get things for free" is as relevant as coming into a discussion about roads needing to be maintained with "well some people use roads to speed, which is breaking the law."
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